Sometimes things happen that set our own lives on end and our minds to reeling. Such has been the case for me this week and to say I’ve been on the introspective side would be putting it mildly, to say the least.

Tuesday morning, we came perilously close to losing yet another one of our officers in what he thought was just a routine traffic stop. Not so much. The driver jumped out shooting and nothing…nothing but the grace of God explains why our officer, our brother, was not hit.

This officer is a large man, a mountain of a man, probably the biggest guy on our department, and he wasn’t hit. His police car was hit…but he wasn’t. A house was hit…but he wasn’t. Bullets flew at him…a big target of a man…he wasn’t hit.

There was an army on that quiet residential street that morning and they stood between our brother and the bullets spewing from the weapon of that desperate young man. They made sure our brother went home to his wife and family that day. By the grace of God…by the grace of God.

Things are changing. It didn’t used to be this way. Now, it almost seems like it’s becoming commonplace. I don’t like it. It messes with my mind. These people are my family. They put on the same uniform that I do. They wear the same badge. They get in a car that looks, more or less, just like mine. They ride the same streets…see the same people…it’s the same. We may do different jobs, but it’s all in the same Department…the same family. But the world is not the same. It seems like things that would have never happened “back in the day” happen all too often now. It’s not the same…and I don’t like it.

Oh, by the way, that “desperate young man” in the “routine traffic stop”? He didn’t make it. There was an army on that street that morning but someone wasn’t listening.

This entry was posted
on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 8:55 pm and is filed under How I See It.
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